Fallen Angel Mission 1: Dionysus
Dionysus Colony Dionysus, the title of the first mission, is also the name of a colony along the edge of Confederation space. The campaign of LotC: Fallen Angel begins here. The colony director, Robert Reeves, receives notification that a Confederation covert team is landing at Dionysus and is given instructions to maintain the covert's visit as classified. Reeves, having had his colony used as a staging area for coverts before (due to its distance from the watchful eyes of the inner colonies), wearily grants landing clearance. Having coverts on the ground means all inbound and outbound transports are halted for the duration causing a flood of complaints to be routed through colony administration (something Reeves despises having to tangle himself with). As the coverts do supercede civilian needs however, Reeves has no choice but to comply. He orders the colony's defense grid to be lowered and has civilian traffic grounded until the coverts are scheduled to leave. Reeves establishes a perimeter of colony security teams around the covert's landing site with instructions not to allow any colony personnel through regardless of rank. Elsewhere in the colony, Lieutenant Janine Richter (callsign Angel) recognizes the colonywide announcement about civilians being grounded as a smokescreen for the covert's presence. Having had so many covert teams visit Dionysus over a period of years, it is a relatively ordinary occurrence. However, in all that time she has never seen the coverts and cajoles her second (Sergeant Major Gerard Meyers) to sneak a look at their ship. Meyers is hesitant as he believes they will be 'cranky' if their privacy is encroached upon, but Angel convinces him after some prodding. Dionysus itself is a colony of islands built in shallow waters on the world of Aeterna 6AX-L (what infantry refer to as "The Axle") The colony has four islands total: A hub (the military production base and also the nexus connecting all islands) The power area (providing all power to the colony's teleport lift, lighting, and defense systems) Civilian living area (which includes housing and some retail outlets) Launch area (where all landing platforms, transports, and fighters are located) The player is able to freely move to these areas by using teleport lifts located in the southeast corner of the Hub. The lifts are operated by a player controlled civilian unit in the Power Area. Each of the other islands has a single teleport lift connecting back to the Hub. Dionysus, being on the fringes of Confederation space, is lacking in many essentials including fully functional power generators. Due to power strains around the colony, only one teleport lift can be operated at any given time. The teleport lift connecting the colony's hub to the launch area has an electrical failure preventing transport to the covert's landing site. Colony director Reeves (Who Angel refers to as "Uncle Bob") asks her to find a civilian engineer nicknamed Rodent who was supposed to repair the lift but instead abandoned his duties. Angel and her squad use the teleport lift to reach the Dionysus civilian living area and chase down Rodent after his short-lived attempt to flee. Rodent begs Angel to help him beat his video game before he goes back to work. The player is not given the option to say 'yes' or 'no' but is instead placed right into Rodent's game. Rodent's Video Game Rodent's game has no title and consists of protecting civilian assets (yellow structures and units at the bottom) from Zerg which appear from tunnels at the top. Rodent's game is modeled after the actual Zerg attacks against earth some three centuries earlier by the video game producers. The player is given control of a sieged arclite on higher ground with which he/she can destroy the hydralisks which appear. The player must select the hydralisks and the attack button from the StarCraft console (right clicking with the mouse will not cause the arclite to fire) The hydralisks come in five waves and have varying levels of health with some requiring three arclite shots and others dying to a single shot. Anytime a wave of hydralisks is destroyed, the player will hear applause sound effects. Anytime a civilian structure is lost, the player will hear jeer sound effects. When all five waves are complete, Rodent's game is won and he returns to his shift. He quickly fixes the teleport lift to the colony's launch area. Angel's squad is also returned to the colony Hub prior to the player regaining control of the units. Sneak a Peek at Covert Ops...or Not Angel and her squad are stopped cold by Reeves' security forces assigned to guard the covert's landing site. Both Angel and Meyers attempt to talk their way through the security guard pictured above when one of the coverts appears to assess the situation (Portrait shown bottom right; custom rendered by artist Joel Steudler) and then orders the security guard to shoot Angel and her squad if they attempt to enter the restricted area. With that in mind, Meyers cajoles Angel into leaving the area. A cutscene occurs next in which Colony Director Reeves is told that another covert ops ship is incoming to Dionysus and like the first one, it is not responding to initial communication requests. Reeves, irritated by the coverts' mentality in general, foregoes standard defense protocols required for unidentified ships entering colony space. Reeves orders that the colony defense grid again be lowered and states he's leaving for his lunch. Thirty minutes later, an electrical surge in the underground power center fries all of the colony's generators. All electricity is cut creating a colony-wide blackout of defense systems which were on standby. As the colony exhausted its back-up generators months prior, it can do nothing but wait for the engineers to fix the problem. The colony assistant director (referred to only as Darren) uses a battery powered com system to communicate with the power center and scolds Chief 'Engineer Bill' for allowing the blackout to occur. The engineers, complaining about the fact that they have outdated equipment and ConFed needs to replace twelve of the sixteen generators entirely, indicates that they will patch together the repairs with bubble gum and some twine as usual. Reference is made to a ConFed supply ship which is en route and has replacement power cores for the four remaining functional generators which will ease the burden considerably. Engineer Bill states he will take the colony's lights offline so he has enough power to reboot the generators. Power Generator Puzzle #1 The Dionysus power generator puzzle begins as the player is given control of two SCV's in the power center. In the middle of the room shown above will flash a series of colored beacons. Like the game 'Simon Says,' a player must watch the sequence in which the colors flash, then move the SCV's to those colored beacons in the power center in the same order. The puzzle flashes '1' first, then '2,' then '3,' until it hits '5.' Each time it flashes the beacons more rapidly, giving the player less time to learn the sequence. If at any point in any of the sequences the player moves an SCV to the incorrect beacon, the entire puzzle resets. After moving an SCV to the correct beacons, a chime will sound along with green text on the bottom left indicating the progress of the repairs (shown in the screenshot above). When all '5' sequences are completed correctly, power is restored and the player loses control of the SCV's and returns to a cutscene in which the colony administration building is shown. Day of Revelation Begins Director Reeves returns from lunch complaining about the food at one of the restaurants when he's told there are more covert ops ships still incoming. When he asks how many there are, the response is 'A couple of hundred or so.' Reeves believes this to be impossible and thinking it is a jest, asks how the early warning system missed '200' incoming ships. The assistant director responds that Reeves instructed the colony to lower the defense grid and left for lunch without requesting the grid be brought back online. As a result, some obscure tracking station in the corner of the administration building, left unmanned by a lazy tech on his own lunch hour, showed blips representing the incoming ships but without the early warning systems engaged, no alarms sounded. No warnings were broadcast. The blips appeared on the screen no one was watching for the better part of an hour. Reeves immediately sent out a distress call to the nearest Confederation communication relay station. The covert ships were not covert ships at all. They were Zerg. For the first time in three centuries, earth and the Zerg crossed paths. The Real Mission Starts The player is given complete control of the colony from this point forward in the mission. The mission objective is to evacuate all civilians (StarCraft civilian units) from the colony. To do this, a player must operate the teleport lifts throughout all four islands to move civilians to a beacon doodad in the launch area. The beacon has a repeated 'ping' on the mini-map to denote its location to the player. Every time a player brings '8' civilians to the beacon, a dropship will scoop them up and depart to orbit. At this point, a new dropship spawns at the landing platforms, moves to the beacon, and waits for the next '8' civilians. These dropships are not player controlled. A player can lose no more than 12 civilians or the mission is failed. At the same time as the player moves civilians, Zerg air and ground forces attack various colony areas. The player will have the greatest chance of success in this mission by doing the following: 1) Immediately double or even triple the SCV's assigned to the military production facility to maximize resource acquisition 2) Build bunkers at the base entrance in the hub and behind the bunkers, station siege tanks. The primary Zerg ground force attacks come in this area so the player should expect to reinforce the defenses here throughout this phase of the mission 3) Put Angel inside of a bunker (if Angel dies, the mission is failed) 4) Move civilians out of the park in the colony's living area island. A few minutes into the mission, Zerg Overlords drop a small group of hydralisks in that area 5) Build a large quantity of missile towers in the launch area island; be certain they do not block pathing for civilians who need to move to the beacon. The launch area will not come under attack by Zerg ground forces so the player should focus on AA protection only 6) Build missile towers in the power area island. The power area hub comes under attack the least and no zerg ground forces will attack there The player will also need to 'liberate' the civilians trapped in the colony's living area. A dozen hydralisks and some mutalisks guard the path to the beacon. The player should use the teleport lifts to move a good mix of tanks, goliaths, marines, and medics to the living area and dispose of those Zerg. Once accomplished, the player can freely move civilians to the hub using the teleport lift in the colony living area. All civilian units throughout the entire colony (except '1' in the power area who must stay behind to operate the teleport lifts) must be evacuated to the beacon thirty minutes after the start of this phase of the mission. Once the civilians are evacuated, the player will be assigned to evacuate colony administration officials (also civilians units) who are located in all islands except the hub. As the zerg have too much aerial presence to make departure in the launch area safe at this point, the administration officials must be moved, using the teleport lifts, to the power center for a special transport. The player should expect to have use military units to escort the colony officials through the islands. Zerg Onslaught: Heavy Attacks Ensue As this phase of the mission begins, Zerg attack all four islands of the colony with the heaviest attack coming against the base entrance on the hub. If the Zerg breach the player's defenses here, they will overwhelm the production facility or will compromise security of the teleport lifts or both. It is imperative the player have enough military units at the base entrance to drive back the attack. Once all '8' officials are evacuated to the power center, the player needs to move them to the beacon doodad with the dropship hovering over it. If any officials die, or if the timer reaches 00:00, the mission fails. The officials will be evacuated and this phase of the mission is complete. A cutscene begins in which a dropship belonging to a Covert Ops specialist (callsign Rasputin) informs his superiors that the Zerg attack is proceeding according to plan. Rasputin also mentions that one of the colony's defenders, Angel, has impressed him and is worthy of observation for potential recruitment and refers to her as a 'Primer,' (presumably the code name used by the coverts for people they deem worthy of further review). Regardless of whether the player uses Angel in helping with the defense or leaves Angel in a bunker for the first phase of the mission, this cutscene will be shown. After the cutscene, the player is given control of Angel who, along with Meyers and a small detachment of military ground forces are fighting their way across a bridge in the colony living area after having gone house to house to ensure all civilians were gone. Angel and Meyers Evacuate An announcement plays over the colony loudspeakers that the Zerg have shifted some of their focus away from military targets to the civilian transports which left the colony earlier. (In actuality, according to the short story "Origins of Fire," only '3' of the colony's '25' evacuation transports made it safely back to Confederation space. Among the survivors was Mustapha Ra'Chek, the colony's senior accountant, who lost his wife and daughter when the Zerg destroyed one of the other transports that departed before his) The player is given twenty seconds to get Angel across the bridge and to the evacuation zone due west of that position. If the player does not move quickly enough, a large group of Ultralisks will appear from behind to decimate the player's troops. If the player arrives at the pick-up zone in time, suicidal Zerg fliers destroy the dropships. This forces the player to find a new pick-up zone which is at the production facility in the hub. When the player tries to use the teleport lift to move between areas however, the power is down again. Angel screams at Engineer Bill to get the power up to the lift. Bill responds that to do so will require sapping all power from colony missile towers (leaving the colony defenseless) but complies with the order. This starts the second and final power generator puzzle of the mission. Power Generator Puzzle #2 The player has five minutes to complete this puzzle or the Zerg will overrun Angel's position and the mission fails. To complete this mission, the player moves the SCV's in the power center to one of the five beacon doodads. This in turn will affect the beacons shown in the screenshot above. Each beacon in the power center will change the color of the beacons in the room above to 'black' or 'blue.' There are many combinations in which a player can succeed and trial and error is the best way to move past this part. Once all beacons are blue, the puzzle is complete and Angel is teleported to the hub. An Ultralisk breaks through the wall in the power center at this point, and the scene shifts back to Angel (leaving the player to presume that all the engineers were killed). Meyers Dies, Angel Moves to Evacuation Ship When Angel arrives at the hub, she finds that the military have evacuated and the abandoned structures have been destroyed by the Zerg. The teleport lift fails again preventing Meyers from going through and without the engineers to help, Angel offers to splice the controls herself. Meyers transmits an agonizing scream and the com goes dead. Alone, Angel proceeds to the launch area as she receives a message from the dropship commander that more Zerg are closing on the colony. The dropship commander, Daryl McGovern, states that because Angel turned him in for 'drinking while on duty,' he is now paying her back by leaving her behind with the Zerg. (McGovern, when asked by a board of inquiry a few days later why he didn't wait for Angel, he stated that the area was too hot and to protect other personnel on his ship he had to leave. The board of inquiry was not convinced but lacked evidence to prosecute him for criminal negligence so he was dishonorably discharged from ConFed service due to questionable judgment during the evacuation.) 5 Years Later; Keepers Return to Dionysus The mission cuts to a covert ops ship five years later. As referenced in the briefing room at the start of the mission, the player's 'real' objective during Fallen Angel is to intercept an arms deal between a pirate leader (Remus) and Protoss. When Dionysus was abandoned by the Confederation, pirates found it to be an ideal staging area for their operations. The covert ops who appeared during the mission and again at this point are revealed to be 'The Keepers.' A string of dialogue occurs in which four Keeper squad members are playing poker onboard the transport (Stillwell, Tank, Thanatos, and Jasmine) while their squad leader Ambrosia (Angel) is elsewhere on the ship. Stillwell speculates that Ambrosia is saddened by the return to "The Axle" after what happened to her but does not elaborate on exactly what transpired after the dropships left Ambrosia/Angel behind. The dialogue concludes as the dropship counts down from ten as it approaches the landing zone and the mission is completed resulting in player victory. Conclusion and Backstory It should be noted also that according to the short story, "Origins of Fire," four hours after the Zerg attacked the colony, a Confederation relief force lead by the CFS Jupiter arrived and expunged the Zerg attackers. They did not arrive in time to save the majority of the evacuation transports. The significance of this battle is important as it was the UPL Jupiter which lead the orbital defense of earth against the Zerg 300 years earlier (battle depicted in LotC: Episode 1 Mission 3). The CFS Jupiter was declared flagship of the Confederation's "Operation: Astal Purge" thereafter. The Zerg attack on Dionysus became known as the "Day of Revelation" to Confederation citizens and nine out of eighteen colonies and earth declared it as a planetary memorial holiday.